Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he wanted peace with Palestinians but described any future independent state as a platform to destroy Israel and for that reason sovereign power of security must remain with Israel.
Speaking at the White House, where he met U.S. President Donald Trump, Netanyahu described the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, where Hamas was in control, as evidence of what Palestinians would do with a state.
Trump said, “I don’t know” when he was asked by reporters if a two-state solution was possible and referred the question to Netanyahu.
Netanyahu said: “I think the Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves, but none of the powers to threaten us. That means a sovereign power, like overall security, will always remain in our hands.”
Later he added: “After October 7th, people said the Palestinians have a state, a Hamas state in Gaza and look what they did with it. They didn’t build it up. They built down into bunkers, into terror tunnels after which they massacred our people, raped our women, beheaded our men, invaded our cities and our towns, our kibbutzim and did horrendous massacres, the kind of which we didn’t see since World War Two and the Nazis, the Holocaust. So people aren’t likely to say, ‘Let’s just give them another state.’ It’ll be a platform to destroy Israel.
“We will work out a peace with our Palestinian neighbours, those who don’t want to destroy us and we will work out a peace in which our security, the sovereign power of security, always remains in our hands,” Netanyahu said.
“Now people will say, ‘It’s not a complete state, it’s not a state, it’s not that.’ We don’t care. We vowed never again. Never again is now. It’s not going to happen again.”
Hellbound and Down 